The First Thing in Counseling

Blog
Written By Terry Enns
 
 
 
 

What’s the first rule of counseling? What’s the first order of business in counseling? What is the greatest need in the counseling room?

If you counsel regularly, your mind may go back to your initial counseling training and the key elements of every counseling case:

  •        Gather data

  •       Discern the problem(s)

  •        Establish involvement

  •      Give hope

  •       Give instruction (teach Scripture)

  •       Assign homework

All those things are important in the counseling room. They are essential to a productive counseling case. But they are not primary. There is something that precedes these practices.

The first thing—the most important thing—in counseling is the soul of the counselor. The most essential quality in the counseling room is the character of the counselor’s heart. Specifically, does the counselor love Christ?

The quality of love was the test that Simon Peter faced after his failure on the night of Jesus’ betrayal. And it was also the means Christ used to restore him to ministry after his failure. “Do you love Me?” was the three-fold question for Peter, and it is an appropriate question for us as well. When we walk into the counseling room, are our hearts satisfied with Christ, submissive to Christ, devoted to Christ, and in love with Christ?

If you are currently counseling—perhaps even walking into the counseling room later today—are you counseling from a heart that is deeply satisfied with Christ?

The principle of loving God and loving Christ saturates the Scriptures. This love is the foundation of everything that we do on any day—and it is the foundation of our ministry of the Word of God in counseling. If we will handle the Scriptures well in the counseling room and if we will serve our counselees well, it will begin with our own heart transformation and our own deepening love of Christ.

This is the priority of the newest Christian and the most seasoned believer. It is the goal of both the pastor and the pew-sitter, the counselor and counselee. When he was 76 years old and after decades in faithful ministry to Christ, George Müller observed, “I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was to have my soul happy in the Lord.”

Friend, do you love God? Is Christ your all in all (Colossians 3:11b)?

I offer only a few verses of encouragement to stimulate your love of the triune Godhead:

  • One thing I have asked from the LORD, that I shall seek: That I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the LORD and to meditate in His temple (Psalm 27:4).

  • But as for me, I trust in You, O LORD, I say, “You are my God.” . . . O love the LORD, all you His godly ones! The LORD preserves the faithful And fully recompenses the proud doer. Be strong and let your heart take courage, All you who hope in the LORD (Psalm 31:14, 23–24).

  • O taste and see that the LORD is good; How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him (Psalm 34:8)!

  • Delight yourself in the LORD; And He will give you the desires of your heart (Psalm 37:4).

  • As the deer pants for the water brooks, So my soul pants for You, O God (Psalm 42:1).

  • How lovely are Your dwelling places, O LORD of hosts! My soul longed and even yearned for the courts of the LORD; My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God. . . . For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand outside. I would rather stand at the threshold of the house of my God Than dwell in the tents of wickedness (Psalm 84:1–2, 10).

  • . . . but just as it is written, “Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9).

  • Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31).

  • If anyone does not love the Lord, he is to be accursed. Maranatha (1 Corinthians 16:22).

  • Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with incorruptible love (Ephesians 6:24).

  • For this reason we also constantly thank God that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe (1 Thessalonians 2:13).

  • May the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and into the steadfastness of Christ (2 Thessalonians 3:5).

  • The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. . . . We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him (1 John 4:8, 16).

Counselor friend, do you love Christ and His Father and the Spirit? The question is not whether we serve Christ, are committed to the Scriptures, are faithful in worship, or interpret the Bible with precision. All those are important—and secondary.

The first priority of counseling, and all of life, is the simple question, “Do you love Christ?” A counselor who has genuine affection for Christ will make a faithful guide to take the weak and hurting to the pleasures of Christ.

And if you find your affections for Christ waning, then feed your soul on the rich pictures of our Savior in the Scriptures. And then, having stoked the flames of delight in Christ, go to the counseling room and lead your counselee to the One who is your Treasure.

 
 
Terry Enns
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